Milestones: 1937–1945

The Formation of the United Nations, 1945

On January 1, 1942, representatives of 26 nations at war with the Axis powers met
in Washington to sign the Declaration of the United
Nations endorsing the Atlantic
Charter, pledging to use their full resources against the Axis and
agreeing not to make a separate peace.

The Founding of the UN in San Francisco

At the Quebec Conference in August 1943, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and
British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden agreed to draft a declaration that
included a call for “a general international organization, based on the
principle sovereign equality of all nations.” An agreed declaration was issued
after a Foreign Ministers Conference in Moscow in October 1943. When President
Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Soviet Premier
Joseph Stalin in Tehran, Iran,
in November 1943, he proposed an international organization comprising an
assembly of all member states and a 10-member executive committee to discuss
social and economic issues. The United States, Great Britain, Soviet Union, and
China would enforce peace as “the four policemen.” Meanwhile Allied
representatives founded a set of task-oriented organizations: the Food and
Agricultural Organization (May 1943), the United Nations Relief and
Rehabilitation Administration (November 1943), the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization (April 1944), the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank (July 1944), and the International Civil Aviation
Organization (November 1944).

U.S., British, Soviet, and Chinese representatives met at Dumbarton Oaks in
Washington in August and September 1944 to draft the charter of a postwar
international organization based on the principle of collective security. They
recommended a General Assembly of all member states and a Security Council
consisting of the Big Four plus six members chosen by the Assembly. Voting
procedures and the veto power of permanent members of the Security Council were
finalized at the Yalta Conference
in 1945 when Roosevelt and Stalin agreed that the veto would not
prevent discussions by the Security Council. Roosevelt agreed to General
Assembly membership for Ukraine and Byelorussia while reserving the right, which
was never exercised, to seek two more votes for the United States.

Representatives of 50 nations met in San Francisco April-June 1945 to complete
the Charter of the United Nations. In addition to the General Assembly of all
member states and a Security Council of 5 permanent and 6 non-permanent members,
the Charter provided for an 18-member Economic and Social Council, an
International Court of Justice, a Trusteeship Council to oversee certain
colonial territories, and a Secretariat under a Secretary General. The Roosevelt
administration strove to avoid Woodrow Wilson’s mistakes in
selling the League of Nations to the Senate. It sought bipartisan support and in
September 1943 the Republican Party endorsed U.S. participation in a postwar
international organization, after which both houses of Congress overwhelmingly
endorsed participation. Roosevelt also sought to convince the public that an
international organization was the best means to prevent future wars. The Senate
approved the UN Charter on July 28, 1945, by a vote of 89 to 2. The United
Nations came into existence on October 24, 1945, after 29 nations had ratified
the Charter.